I'm getting this feeling as well. Eventually a dungeon Meta team build for fastest, most efficient clearing will be discovered, and anyone not sticking to, or at least very near to those builds will be excluded. Pinging weapons, armor and utility skills will be the test. Traits won't be easily detectable though...which only further strengthens the "need" for a certain armor set.

Just copy a bunch of the tags into a document, then paste them when asked to ping. They can't tell the difference, and you get to lol!!

The concern being raised, as I understood it, isn't that people should NEVER play pure DPS builds. It's that people who don't have the necessary skill base for them run them, die, and expect everyone else to take the beating so they can have 1337 numbers popping up. It's not a matter of 'Oh, you happen to have an axe w/magic find on it? Go away.' It's a matter of 'Oh, you intentionally made an entire suit of armor just to increase the odds of getting better drops, at the expense of your viability in the group? And I'm supposed to take card of you?'

There was a post in another thread where a warrior wanted a more farm-friendly build. There was a train of thought that since warrior has to spec to bring party heals to the table, they should leave that to another class. Problem is, every class has to invest to create a decent party heal and few people seem willing to do that. Heck, I was doing Mad King with some guildies, and the Guardian I was with was specced DPS to the point that my shouts were keeping our third member out of the grave (in his defense, we both just dinged 80 and don't really have the best of gear).

TL;DR
There's a HUGE difference between having crap gear because you just haven't gotten to upgrade yet, and making choices that lessen your ability to aid a party.

Glass cannons are very viable, or haven't you been reading the threads about them? ...You criticize me for not reading but it's obvious that you're the one in the minority here. The only issue with said glass cannons is when the AI is on a cycle and blips out, then switches targets just long enough to 1-shot a complacent glass cannon. ...or in the case of mobs like Subject Alpha who have huge misleading AoE's where avoiding them comes down to pure luck a fraction of the time. (and even a fraction is too slim a margin for a 2-minute Waypoint slog).

You also cite "Tests" just like the first poster I responded to but you provide no links to them or even a shred of anecdotal evidence like I have. Atleast with what I provided, people can make up their own minds on whether observations met theory. In your case, you're just attacking a little too aggressively, with no counter substance.

PS: The other dead giveaway in all of this, is that this is Anet we're talking about. They've never made their aggro system complex, even when individual mobs are scripted to pick targets (SS-Surveyors & Rragarr for example). And it was obvious with all the issues we saw in Beta that they hadn't made a lot of great strides when it came to A.I.

Regarding the AI, I feel it's the same they used for GW1 basically. Mobs goes through a series of checks to pick targets. Mostly, who hits them first at first, then, distance, armor rating : toughness (mitigation) / health points, DPS dosen't really matter, obviously, if you got low armor rating and low toughness you'll do more DPS or have more MF. The reason why a clothie would always draw aggro is if he gets close to the mob, inevitably, the mob will switch to the low damage mitigation target. If someone else has a higher armor rating, but low HP, the mob will switch to that target. This is highly dynamic. If you got, for example, a guardian tanking, with high HP after a spike heal, and you stand next to him on a clothie with full HP as well, chances are the mob will switch to you, because of your low 'damage mitigation' factor. Pulling and the distance between you and the mob are the major checks, then if the mob has multiple optional targets he'll chose the easiest to kill / finish off. Toughness and armor rating are probably combined for a 'damage mitigation' check.

I remember playing GW1 and noticing mob react really weird compared to other MMOs, then people figured out it was possible to control aggro. it was certainly one of the major differences with other MMOs, no taunt mechanic, mobs picking the easiest reachable target to kill, a very clever AI IMO. There's nothing random.

Why are mobs attacking pets and phantasm / illusions ? Low distance, low HP, low damage mitigation. Why are mobs always ignore the guardian and chase the thief ? Same reasons. In the end, root / stun him when the 'tank' loses aggro and have him right on top of the boss and you won't ever have trouble, unless your melee glass canons are stupid enough to never pull off. If you're at range, you'll never have a boss starting to chase you if you got friendlies standing between you and him, no matter how much DPS you do.

If the mobs / boss is ranged, he'll chose the easiest target he can hit within his range, so sometimes it's really hard to control. That's where you need to cycle your reflect spells, and use LoS or get out of range if you're targeted. Then when your 'tank' takes damage, and his HP goes lower than everybody else, he'll never lose aggro. So, out of LoS or range, heal to full and come back to the fight. If your 'tank' also heals to full, chances are a clothie will next be targeted.

Feel free to correct me, it's all based on my personal experience and observation, and playing both guardian and mesmer to 80, and GW1 for years.

MF gear is bad. You'll realize it sooner or later. I also think gimping your character like that would ruin the fun for me. I love being able to carry dungeons

I agree that full MF gear is bad. I did, however, replace my runes and gems in my accessories with MF and my sigil with a MF sigil and have very little noticeable loss. I'm sure it's there, but it's not a glaring difference. The MF you get from the raw gear is minimal compared to food + sigil + runes.

We went from discussing Glass cannon syndrome to the sustainability of those running full MF gear in dungeons, to the detriment of the group :/ Just to throw my 2 cents in the topic, in this game, apart from taking basic damage mitigation, the most important thing is when the attack hits you be somewhere else. Even melees have to be mindful and keep their distance until the time to strike is right! Glass cannons therefore are a viable strategy in PvE and Dungeons. Now PvP is a different beast....

In my opinion there is no such thing as a "safe ranged" class. Not with the amount of stuns, immobilizes, ranged capable creatures out there. Take Sorrow's embrace exploration for example, there is a ton of AoE being thrown around by mortar cannons or god forbid you play Path 2 with the golems...one of which whips AoE's around like crazy.

IMHO you are going to get hit, you are going to get hit hard and it's just a matter of time.

This I fully agree with.

As a longbow ranger with 1500 range, it is not uncommon for aggro to turn my way. No amount of knock back arrow ( not even possible on a boss till their buff is removed) or traps will stop the inevitable if a boss refuses to ignore me.

Not seeing much to correct TBH... some minions just pick the opposite targets of bosses. I've been seeing Thiefs Mesmers and Rangers doing the same annoying things they'd do in GW1; IE: appearing to be scripted to target the player with the highest healing attributes or just "the guy with the staff".

But when I kept Giganticus Lupicus' aggro on me for 10 solid minutes despite the much squishier much higher Vitality (I got them to tell me their Stats during it) teammates trying their best to DPS and pull aggro while I stopped attacking him entirely for long periods of time to just focus on kiting... it's pretty obvious to me that Toughness is the number 1 factor in Boss/Champ aggro. Some times I'll just walk past a group of players who are fighting a champion and I'm not using any skills but as soon as it comes in vis range to me, it gets stuck on me like glue. As I said with Stone Summit surveyors as an example: there isn't one grand unifying stat for the aggro theory of all mobs... there's just one for most bosses and I found it. And unfortunately even if I posted videos of it (which I have NO issues doing), some people would still argue with me just to argue. ...I guess you could say I'm a real-life Aggro magnet as well.

Dont want to see berserker geared ppl in your groups? Knock at anets door until they nerf the mobs' health in 5-10 times. With shit taking so long to kill, I'd much rather see 5x berserkers in my group than ANYTHING else.

My war, guard, and thief all have a set of knights armor. It just helps stay active in the battle if im not scambling out to heal up because you will run out of dodges, blinds, etc at some point. Is there a problem with people using zerk armor? no way, but a group filled with glass is risky. Alot of times glassy folks wont be able to rez because they will simply get dropped if they stop kiting. Out of the three, iI would only consider zerk on my thief because of the stealth and mobility style of survivability. I dont think any other class could match up to thief in that regard (maybe mes).

Mf gear in dungeons? Eh, iI dont see how thats a good idea. Save it for DEs or farming, but iI pretty much do dungeons for fun, tokens, and gold. Never seemed like a good idea to sac the stat when a group is depending on me.

I run a (pretty much, beryl jewelry) glass cannon ele in dungeons.
Also have supporty gear for WvW, I wouldn't equip it in dungeons.

You can avoid a great deal of damage by awareness, dodging and having your other group members gather up the mobs so they can be destroyed cleanly.

It is much more effective to have a group with the potential to completely obliterate a bunch of mobs that have been chilled / crippled and rooted than a group with super survivability that can't kill jack shit and will get killed by special mob moves anyhow.

Just my opinion.

Of course the ones doing the pulling and grouping (typically a guardian / warrior) should have decent amounts of toughness, as should anyone who is facetanking anything. A bunch of boons being handed out at any time is also good to have.